Post by davidhr on Dec 5, 2017 8:47:07 GMT -5
The big news this past week was Lara’s appearance on Belle et Bum aired Saturday night. Lara’s time on the show can be seen at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ziWe2v3J-E
As was discussed last week, she sang ‘Growing Wings’ from the new album, and segments of her past hits “Tu t’en vas”, “I Will Love Again”, and “Je t’aime”. She also joined ‘Long and McQuade’ for a bit of “I Know a Place”. As a special treat, she was accompanied on the piano for her songs by Pierre Grimaud, who had provided that service for her during her Quebec-oriented career.
(In case the above link happens to be removed, the older songs can be seen at
www.facebook.com/larafabian.artist/videos/1242801492530477/,
while ‘Growing Wings’ can be seen at
www.facebook.com/larafabian.artist/videos/1242794832531143/ ).
Lara was radiant, and quite at ease being there, her first appearance ever on that show (not really a surprise, since it started in 2003, after Lara had moved back to Europe). As can be heard, she was in quite good voice; the host, Normand Brathwaite, even mentioned that sitting up close to her he appreciated just how beautiful her voice was. She appeared to have to look at the lyrics for “Tu t’en vas”, also not a surprise since it’s hard to remember the last time she sang it (she even had a little trouble with the words for ‘I Will Love Again’). The show was bathed in the connotation of this being Lara’s “Return to Quebec”, and everybody involved, including Tele-Quebec, played that up as much as possible. It makes a very good story, and the comments people made writing into the show on their FB page (https://www.facebook.com/pg/BelleEtBum/posts/) indicated how much they appreciated that, and her performance.
Associated with Lara’s singing of ‘Growing Wings’, a number of fans indicated that they really liked her album “Camouflage” and that is verified by Lara being #3 for English albums (by Quebec artists) on the ‘adisq’ listing (http://palmaresadisq.ca/fr/tops-ventes/chansons/).
One side note about ‘Belle et Bum’: the host/hostess are themselves artists. ‘Belle et Bum’ indicated that this is a special feature of their show. It is something that does not happen in France (or Italy, England, etc), though someone pointed out that it also occurs in Sweden.
And Lara has some more shows in Quebec on tap. According to Lara’s Instagram post, a beautiful picture of herself,
http://instagram.com/p/BcGYGvJnso9
she will be appear on the show "Y' a du monde à messe" on December 24th, to be broadcast on Tele-Quebec. She will be joined by a group of gospel singers including Coral Egan, Kim Richardson and Dorian Sherwood, all well-known to Lara’s fans for their previous work with her.
Yesterday, Lara recorded the program ‘Microphone’ (https://publiccible.com/Emission/MICROPHONE).
The post describing it says,:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Télé-Québec broadcasts Microphone , a series of unpublished and intimate musical events hosted by singer-songwriter Louis-Jean Cormier . Louis-Jean invites us to rediscover French music in a very special way. With invited artists that he particularly likes, he reinvents famous songs by taking them in a different way.
We follow the artists, naturally, in their process of rearranging parts of their own repertoire or Quebec classics. We see them working together, mingling their voices, adjusting their rhythms and literally creating chemistry. Then we find them on stage, while they present to the public the fruit of their creative encounters in an acoustic performance always as intimate as warm.
Throughout the process, we truly feel like the privileged witnesses of a moment.
----------------------------------------------------------
Like a number of these shows, the broadcast date is TBD.
In addition, on December 5th she will record the program “Ensemble pour Noel”
www.publiccible.com/Emission/ENSEMBLEPOURNOEL
where she will join Marc Dupré, Brigitte Boisjoli, Paul Daraîche, Marie-Élaine Thibert, Geneviève Leclerc, 2 frères, and Guylaine Tanguay. According to their advertisement, the singers will sing their past hits, and also songs of the holiday.
And, also as indicated on Lara’s Instagram page, she has recorded an appearance on the Canadian version of “Les enfants de la tele” for Radio-Canada
http://instagram.com/p/BcQdIukHgNt
(the version in France is on France 2).
Concerning ‘La Voix’, Lara indicated on her FB site that Laurence Jalbert will be joining her ‘team’ to act as a mentor to the singers she’s coaching. A picture of the two of them can be found at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/photos/a.215378125170359.50343.201065806601591/1829167993791356/?type=3&theater&ifg=1
Also, a short video of the current ‘coaches’ sending messages to Marc Dupre can be found at
www.facebook.com/lavoixtva/videos/1503216163107220/
He was a very popular coach for five years on the program. He left to spend more time with his family, and for ‘new adventures’ (he had an album out last month – a video of the song ‘Rester forts’ can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-MrL4_sTAU ).
While things are going very well for Lara in Quebec, the same cannot be said for her in France. Her album ‘Camouflage’ is no longer on the French charts (and in Belgium it has slipped to #77). On the positive side, Marco Duplessis on the LFIAG Select site pointed out that the video for ‘Growing Wings’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDBhnj0KMi0) has now more than 1 million views. Too bad all those people didn’t buy the album…
In addition, Jean-Claude Camus, a famous record producer known for his work with Johnny Hallyday among many others (and now 79 years old), had some unkind words about Lara. He worked with her many years ago (although he is not listed on any of her albums), and indicated in his just-released autobiography “Pas né pour ça” and in a current article in ‘Ici Paris’, that he was not pleased with the experience. A discussion of his remarks can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEXnwHVt-RM
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=odmGO6a3Uh0
and also published by ‘Pure People’ at
amp.purepeople.com/article/lara-fabian-attaquee-par-son-ancien-producteur-jean-claude-camus-impitoyable_a261733/1
Saying that Lara has a ‘crazy talent’, he suggested she would have had an immense career if “she had a head on her shoulders”, that she “sabotaged her talent and put her career in the air” by making big errors. The first was stopping her collaboration with her ex, Rick Allison, who wrote her hits. The second was to do "a little too much", which has probably "tired out her audience", that being on TV all the time works for a while, but eventually people tune you out. And finally, he claims Lara did not have had enough "confidence" in her producers. He was particularly incensed that in 2003, after the tour of “En toute intimate”, he learned that the she had made “horrible and unpleasant" remarks about him. She asked, behind his back, to see the receipts of her concerts, which meant that she did not trust in the figures that he gave her. A distrust that led them to stop their collaboration. He concluded, "The lesson of history is obvious: it is not enough to be a very big star, to have a voice and a talent. One also has to know how to manage your career and, for that, give your trust to those who work on your side.”
Lara obviously has had a very successful career, but most fans would agree with at least some of these statements: she should be even better known, her work with Rick put her at the peak of her career, and Lara didn't seem to be well served by her ‘managers’ (a comment even Celine Dion made about her many years ago). Thinking she could have done things differently, however, fails to recognize that ‘the package is as it is’ - Lara is the person she is, her great singing and creativity arise from that emotional personality, and if she is more ‘intuitive’ and not as ‘strategic’ as some, that is an integral part of the personality that her fans do love. One can also file this under, “you can’t please everybody”. It should be noted he also had some less than sterling things to say about other artists, including Michel Fugain.
There is some new information concerning the tour. The five concerts in Germany have been moved from their March time-frame, due to Lara’s need to be in Quebec for “La Voix”. Instead, they’ve been rescheduled for Sept. 18-22, and so the tour has been extended from its previous June ending date to now ending in September. One wonders what this means about the plan to have a new French album out in the fall of 2018, and a tour for it in the spring of 2019. It’s not impossible that Lara could work on the album anyway, but it is pushing the time line.
With this announcement, people asked about whether Lara will be touring Brazil, a possibility she herself had raised some time back. As usual, her Team responded, “We are waiting for Brazilian concert organizers to organize a concert. Concerts are organized by local companies in each country, who invite Lara Fabian to perform her show in the respective countries. We hope that Brazilian concert organizing companies will add dates for this tour. We do not have any information on any concerts in Brazil so far. Team Lara”. A fan then asked, how could producers arrange such a thing if Lara does not even have her records circulated, much less any publicity. It’s a “Catch-22”: without her presence and active participation, as is occurring now in Quebec, there will be no audience (which was pretty much the case recently in Quebec before she arrived there); but without an audience, no producer will go out on a limb to arrange booking for her to bring her there. One would hope Lara’s Team is being more proactive than they are saying.
There is also an additional concert date in Moscow, for 2/25; this is interesting because it’s not as if the first date, on the day before, is anywhere near sold out. Perhaps they’re proceeding on the assumption that Lara will have as full an audience as she’s had there in the past, where she’s often played before a full house.
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from Lara’s FB page, taken at ‘Belle et Bum’, a beautiful picture,
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/photos/pcb.1826732840701538/1826732740701548/?type=3&theater
and, similarly, from Lara’s Twitter account,
/photo/1
Apparently we can expect Lara’s media appearances in Quebec to accumulate more and more as this month proceeds, ending in her various Holiday broadcasts. Lara’s people have said the U.S. promotion will begin in January, with the release of the next single "Chameleon" along with a “fantastic remix” (their words). It’s hard to imagine it will be anywhere near as extensive as that in her beloved Montreal, and equally hard to imagine that it will be as effective.
David
